The seeds of the next big ideas in the reimagining of the Canadian sport system could be planted Monday and Tuesday in Ottawa.
Around 350 to 400 leaders from across the sector — spanning national sport organizations (NSOs), professional sports figures, corporate investors, athletes, philanthropists and more — will gather at the National Arts Centre in the country’s capital to chart a path forward for an industry on the precipice of massive change.
“The Playground to Podium Summit represents a new era in Canadian sport,” said Canada’s Secretary of State for Sport, Adam van Koeverden. In April, the federal government pledged nearly $1 billion in sports funding over the next five years, and in Thursday’s budget announcement, an additional $1.5 billion dedicated to improving the country’s sports infrastructure.
“We are not just investing more money into sport,” van Koeverden said. “We’re also charting a new path forward for sport, for play, for recreation, for high performance and every aspect of Canadian sport and the opportunity to discuss that in great detail with all of the leaders in Canadian sport, with some incredible leaders, entrepreneurs, business folks, Olympic champions, Paralympic champions, Stanley Cup champions, board members from international sport federations, as well as Canadian pillars of sport.”
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A New Game Plan Series
Over two days in Ottawa, there will be eight panel discussions, four workshops and a closing keynote speech from van Koeverden, Canadian Olympic Committee CEO David Shoemaker and Canadian Paralympic Committee CEO Karen O’Neill.
Other speakers include Olympic gold medallist sprinter Bruny Surin, Canadian Tire Jumpstart president Marco Di Buono, Canadian Super Bowl winner Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, Alpine Canada CEO Andrew Baker.
The stated objectives of the summit are to advance the new era through the pillars of investment, transformation, participation, alignment and deliverance.
“Ultimately, our job, whether you’re the minister of sport or the social media manager at Badminton Canada, is to bring sport to Canadians. And that’s the goal to deliver more sport to more Canadian families across the country,” van Koeverden said.
Canada Basketball CEO Mike Bartlett is among six set to facilitate a workshop on alignment.
“I think we have to be really open to letting the conversation take people into places where we, even as operators, might be uncomfortable,” Bartlett said. “We should explore everything right now because one thing’s for sure: the Canadian government has prioritized sport, is investing in sport like no government ever has before. And we owe it to ourselves to look more advanced and more world-leading in our design and in our operations by the time this investment really starts to be measured. So the summit is a big step towards that.”
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The reconsideration of the Canadian sports ecosystem comes in the wake of the Future of Sport in Canada Commission report released in March, which called the industry underfunded and fragmented among other issues.
More than 100 calls to action spawned from the report, many of which are set to be discussed at the summit, including amalgamation among the 64 NSOs, community participation and Indigenous pathways.
‘Look at a wider horizon’
Another key topic on the minds of many NSOs is a funding framework, which included an immediate injection of $60 million in supplemental funding to the organizations.
“Obviously, I want to hear from the minister and hear his thoughts on the future vision and hear from Sport Canada on their funding framework,” said Nathan Bombrys, the CEO of Rugby Canada, which received $2.815 million in additional funding, the second-highest total. “We have a number from the supplemental funding. We’ve understood that process. Part of the process now is to look at multi-year, look at a wider horizon, which we welcome, and learn more about where the government is seeing that and giving us some direction so we can make sure it aligns with our strategy and where we believe we can go or should go going forward.”
To that end, van Koeverden said he met with NSOs this past week to offer a preliminary version of that framework — essentially a rubric by which NSOs will be held accountable for funding.
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The framework promises to be a talking point among NSO leaders, but it is not the focus of the summit,” van Koeverden said. “We want to talk about our ambitions and objectives a bit more broadly, but the funding framework will be a theme, I think, of discussion now that national sport organization leaders have had a chance to review it and provide comments.”
Mostly, the summit is a chance to pick the brains of other industry leaders.
Bombrys said he is most looking forward to pre-planned conversations with other NSOs around potential partnerships such as co-hosting an event with Wheelchair Rugby Canada.
‘Put Pandora back in the box’
Bartlett said Canada Basketball’s No. 1 goal is learning more about vertical alignment within the sport.
“Our game is growing so fast due to the popularity of basketball in this country that there is a lot of basketball that gets played out of the traditional member ecosystem,” Bartlett said. “So being able to identify ways that we can, in some respects, put Pandora back in the box and have a more connected system.
“It doesn’t all have to be within the membership construct, but everything — whether it’s prep schools, it’s leagues that happen outside of provincial league play, whether it just even be semi-private clubs — I think there needs to be a way to verify and standardize operations or at least policy and procedure in those clubs so that the system can be connected. And I think we’ll learn from other sports on how best to do that.”
Van Koeverden said the summit was designed that way — to include people from “as diverse backgrounds as possible,” to share ideas and best practices.
“When you put 100 leaders in a room, you might get 150 recommendations and ideas. But the convening power of Sport Canada and the government of Canada is an important tool to use,” he said.
Ultimately, the summit’s success will determine whether more gatherings of its kind occur. For now, it’s a one-off — the kind of moment the sector could point to in 20 years as a key inflection.
“This is a remarkable pivot point in sport,” van Koeverden said. “This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity.”
